Like everything else, people can become so addicted to collecting and hoarding books that it stilts their lives. It is an actual obsessive-compulsive disorder. If book addiction is wrong, though, who wants to be right?
I have moved more than seven times post-college. My cousin’s husband helped me move from Connecticut to Rhode Island when I got my first big girl job. Kind of him. As he carried one half-ton box after another up two flights of stairs, he said, “If I visit you, you had better be reading.”
First date with the future mister was in a bookstore. He spoke Tolkienese. Though I had read The Hobbit in high school, I had shied away from the other Tolkien books because, well, the cartoon of The Hobbit frightened me. The short sordid story is that Hobbits reminded me of a creepy guy from The Warriors who also reminded me of Geddy Lee. Yes, I avoided the band Rush for a long time, too. I don’t know what to tell you. I’m part Irish, and we’re a superstitious people.
I bought The Lord of the Rings on that first date in order to communicate with my fella, and he and I returned to the scene of that crime over and over again. We hit many a bookstore together, and it was never a question of “if” we’d buy books but “what” books we’d buy. It did not matter if we had ten other books we were already reading piled next to our respective beds, we had to have more.
The best job of my life before I moved to New Orleans was the one I acquired while my mister was figuring out if he could fashion a book into a ring for my finger. RJ Julia Booksellers of Madison, CT, hired me to play with the books. Aversion therapy did not work there. I had my paychecks spent weeks in advance. I could find some reason I needed every book I touched.
Years, books bought, sold, given, and many bookshelves later, I am working at a bookstore again. Maple Street is double the trouble because we have a used and a new store side by side. I began in the new store, but with some employee changes, I started working primarily in the used store. Worse for me. Much worse. A hardcover edition of this for only $4.95? Sold. I totally forgot I wanted to read that. Sold. Wow! I have one of these, but this is such a unique edition. Sold.
Customers confide to me daily, like I’m their priest in the confessional of the books, they have a problem with wanting, needing books, that they can’t even look around because it will be bad for all involved. Then, they start to twitch a little and back out of the store slowly, but not before their eyes catch that volume of Lear poetry or that great collection of Poe stories. Back at the counter, they can only dole out money and avoid my gaze.
I am an addict. An enabler. A dealer.
I am unapologetic and unremorseful.
I will feed your addiction at Maple Street.
Veronica K. Brooks-Sigler
Bookseller
Nicely done!
Bookstores are like little churches for booklovers. It’s where we go to worship the written word- bookstores and libraries of course 🙂
Just what I needed to read with my morning coffee. Validation!
I don’t know about that bookstore as church idea. (Maybe libraries, but they never have the series titles that I NEED).You know what it says about rich people and the Eye of the Needle! I know all of my books won’t fit into Heaven.
I’m about to possess that volume of Lear Poetry thanks to the lovely Veronica Brooks Sigler. So happy to have you here in NOLA at last.
[…] Like everything else, people can become so addicted to collecting and hoarding books that it stilts their lives. It is an actual obsessive-compulsive disorder. If book addiction is wrong, though, who wants to be right? I have moved more than seven times post-college. My cousin's husband helped me move from Connecticut to Rhode Island when I got my first big girl job. Kind of him. As he carried one half-ton box after another up two flights of stai … Read More […]
Yup. I have…gasp…Biblioholism! But I don’t want 10 steps or 12 steps! There is a book called, “Biblioholism.” Good stuff, Maynard! Books…reading is the oil to keep your brain functioning! If I ever go where your shop in NOLA, I will be there. I am in bookstores wherever I go! My family started in NOLA and moved up the Mississippi in 1852 and some day, I will get to NOLA!
Very well said!
validation….i can not pass up a good book deal
Where oh where is Maple Street? No, don’t tell me. It’s better I not know. Is there anyone else out there who loves the movie “84 Charing Cross Road?” As others have said, if being addicted to books is wrong, I don’t want to be right. Long live book addiction! Thanks to all of you who reinforce the fact that I am not alone in my addiction, i.e. there are no screws loose!
We’re in New Orleans. Thanks everyone for responding. Our baby blog is on its way.
Hello…my name is Allison & I am a book addict!
Hello, my name is Toni and I am a book addict!
Allison, do you think we need a 12-step program?
Well, actually, we probably do, but I’m not going to join because I don’t want to be healed.
Dearheart, I am Carol Habig in Kansas City, MO and take a look at mine on #7. There is a book called “Biblioholism” and you would love that book for all of us who don’t want help! I see a bookshop or even better a sale on books! My heart beats erratically, my eyes bulge out, my breathing is out of control, the hands shake and I drop things, I drool and that is when I notice the shop or sale: books and more books. There is no shame. When it comes to books, I am shameless.
Books,books,books,I’m just in love with them,and I have a bookshelf of rescued old leather bound books,cotton taped to hold them together!NOTHING can replace books!
Carol, thanks for the heads up about “Biblioholism.” I have ordered the book. I, too, am shameless when it comes to books.
Actually, “84 Charing Cross Road” was a Book before it was a movie!
Kaloo, Kaley, I chortle in my Joy!
Laughed out loud at the Hobbit/Rush/Irish paragraph. And it’s before 7 in the morning; I need some major persuasion to laugh at this hour of the day. =]
I also empathize with your book addiction.
Thanks for the great post!
Fabulous Veronica!
I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves. ~Anna Quindlen, “Enough Bookshelves,” New York Times, 7 August 1991
I had to share this quote I found!
What a wonderful quote! Thank you for sharing.